1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to a method for diagnosing cancer by qualitative and quantitative determination according to an immuno-serological assay of cancer-related antigens in a body fluid, particularly glycoprotein, glycolipid and glycoantigen produced by cancerization or dedifferentiation of normal cells.
2. Prior Art
Heretofore, specific immuno-serological assay of cancer has been carried out according to methods for assaying cancer-specific glycoprotein as a cancer-diagnosing marker. These methods utilize the immunogenicity of protein moiety of glycoprotein, where the tumor marker includes, for example, .alpha.-fetoprotein (hereinafter referred to as AFP), carcinoembryonic antigen (hereinafter referred to as CEA), .gamma.-glutamyltranspeptidase (hereinafter referred to as .gamma.-GTP), human chorionic gonadotropin (hereinafter referred to as HCG), etc.
For example, measurement of serum AFP value is known as a specific immunoserological diagnosis of primary hepatic carcinoma. So long as its increase is small, it is difficult to decide whether it is caused by the regeneration of hepatocyte or by hepatoma cells. AFP considerably increases not only in the case of primary hepatic carcinoma, but also sometimes in the case of metastasis to the liver from the oophoroma, or sometimes from the gastric cancer and the pancreatic cancer (metastatic hepatic carcinoma), and thus the differential diagnosis of cancer is hard to make on the basis of mere quantitative change.